Ariston_Star Guardians

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  He hopped an alley to the next building and then the next. The scrapes were growing louder, now accompanied by clinks that echoed from the walls.

  Ariston slowed as he approached, walking along the edge of another roofless building. He thought he would find the men in an alley or intersection, but they were inside the remains of a large structure with a circular hollow in the center of it. Ariston had passed it earlier and glanced in through one of the arched doorways—it had looked like a reservoir or perhaps a dwelling built around a natural cenote. Maybe he should have mentioned it to Weiss.

  Small creatures skittered and fled from the direction of those scrapes. They emitted a few squeaks before disappearing into rubble piles.

  Ariston leaped toward the corner of the roof of the reservoir building, once again choosing to stay aloft instead of walking through one of the arches. His landing was uncharacteristically clumsy, and his heel landed half off the roof. A rock shifted free.

  He squatted, lunging low to catch it before it could fall to the ground. His fingers curled around it in time, but he knew he’d made noise, so he froze while waiting to see if the men had heard it.

  The scrapes stopped. So did the voices.

  He grimaced, crouching on the corner and setting the rock down so he could shift his hand to his bolt bow. That clumsiness was a testament to his weariness. He shouldn’t be so tired, but his eyelids were heavy. This planet definitely had a draining effect on him.

  Using his neural interface with his armor, he pulled up the list of three drugs he kept stored in his armor, ready to be injected in an emergency. He had a potent painkiller, a stimulant, and a coagulant to promote clotting in case of excessive bleeding. He gave himself a half-dose of the stimulant.

  “Did you hear something?” a man whispered, his voice drifting up from the center of the structure.

  Ariston couldn’t see him or the cenote from his position since the roof of this building hadn’t entirely crumbled. It was broken through in the center but not along the edges.

  “This time, I did,” came a reply, a woman.

  Ariston hadn’t realized any of the handful of female crew on the salvage ship had been sent down.

  “What do you mean this time?”

  “You’ve been hearing things all night.”

  “So? You’ve been seeing things all night. This place is haunted by all the people who died here. We’ll be lucky if they don’t kill us in our sleep.”

  “Just go back to clearing rocks.”

  Clearing rocks?

  Ariston turned on his helmet recorder. He couldn’t see the crew members yet, but he could record audio.

  “I didn’t pick through all those pockets in that wreck because I like groping dead people,” the woman added.

  “If Eryx had waited a few hours to shoot down their ship, they might have gotten the loot out for us.”

  “Captain didn’t come for the loot, he came to stop the looters.”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s all kinds of noble.”

  Believing they had dismissed the noise he’d made, Ariston moved along the roof near the wall. He already had enough video footage to condemn Eryx of a crime, but this audio would further condemn his crew.

  He thought about crawling out to look down from the hole in the roof, but the stone might collapse under his weight. Instead, he continued along the wall until he was above one of the arches. Light seeped out through it from whatever lamps the diggers were using.

  He was about to hop down, but he spotted a small hole in the roof nearby, one right next to the wall. He crept over and lowered his head through it, surveying the open cenote upside-down.

  The man and woman crouched at the edge, scraping away mortar and moving stones from the remains of some system for pulling up water. Ariston couldn’t imagine what kind of treasure or loot they might find in there—a cog or a wheel?—but who knew what the collectors considered valuable? Sometimes, a well-preserved pot fetched a lot of drachmas at an auction if it was old enough.

  The pair uncovered a crank and lowered a chain supporting a bucket with a fancy metal framework around it. It looked like it might be able to tilt the bucket to scoop up water. Clinks reverberated through the building. Was pulling up water all they wanted to do? That hardly seemed archaeologically significant.

  As Ariston hung there, recording them, he looked around the rest of the reservoir building. He spotted a tripwire set up at the arch he’d almost come in through. Those two must have been worried about him—or the rest of the crew—stumbling upon them.

  “I got something,” the woman whispered, pulling up the bucket.

  She leaned over the edge and drew out something round with a tarry substance coating it. Water dripped from it, echoing as it splashed down far below. She had a towel with her and wiped at the object.

  Ariston watched, puzzled. How had she gotten something like that into a bucket made for pulling up water? Or had he assumed incorrectly that had been its purpose? Maybe the bucket was weighted and could go down through the water to the bottom. And whatever lay on the bottom.

  As the woman wiped off the object, it grew identifiable, and Ariston gaped. It was a skull. A human skull. Fully intact. Preserved through the millennia somehow.

  What if that hole wasn’t a cenote but instead some kind of depository for bodies? Or skulls? Maybe this was the equivalent of a crypt.

  His lip curled. Hades’ perversions, he didn’t believe in the supernatural, but if people had been chucked into a pit in the middle of town, maybe this place had a very good reason to be haunted.

  As if in response to his thoughts, wind gusted down the street behind him, and dust skidded across the cobblestones.

  “Yes, see? That little dark bump on the temple?” The woman—Teia, that was her name—shone a flashlight across the skull. It glinted off a single blue-black gem so small Ariston wouldn’t have been able to see it from his position without the light. “According to those people’s notes—” she waved in the direction of the wrecked ship, “—the dead here were all supposed to have them, and they’re worth a fortune on the black market. They’re supposedly Wanderer technology.”

  “Technology?” her partner asked. “It looks like some kind of gem.”

  “That’s what the first explorers who found this planet thought, or so the data I got says. But recently, someone figured out that they’re chips made from Wanderer technology and that they do something.”

  “Something? What?”

  “I don’t think anyone knows yet, but this little chip is worth a fortune. And there’s supposed to be one in every skull of every person who lived and died on this planet two thousand years ago.” She shone her light into the depths of the cenote.

  “And they’re all down there?”

  “Not all, but plenty. After people passed—or were sacrificed—the living burned the flesh from their bodies and had some ceremony where they dumped the skulls into the underground reservoir down there. Most would have decomposed after all this time, I’m sure, but some were preserved. Either way, the chips should still be down there. It’s just easier to find the ones attached to skulls.” Teia set her find down and waved at her male companion. “Get that bag out. We’ll either take the skulls or cut out the chips. Let’s see how many we can pull up before deciding.”

  Ariston was on the verge of dropping down and capturing the relic hunters right there—surely Mick had room aboard her ship for a couple of prisoners and their ill-gotten loot—but a scream sounded in the distance. Back in the direction of the scientists.

  “What was that?” Teia asked as Ariston drew his head back.

  “Nothing to do with us. Hurry, lower the bucket down and get some more. How much did you say those chips were going for?”

  Ariston didn’t hear the answer. He dropped into the street and sprinted back toward the scientists.

  If something happened to them because he’d wandered off, he wouldn’t forgive himself. And he doubted Mick would forgive him, ei
ther, not after he had promised to watch over them.

  10

  Another scream punctuated the night, one that must have been audible to everyone within two miles. It belonged to a woman. Dev, Ariston assumed, but what if Mick had come out, and something horrible was happening to her?

  Imagining her being tortured under the knives of Eryx’s crew of thugs, Ariston rounded a corner, sprinting straight into the courtyard where he’d left the scientists. All three of them were still there, one on the ground—Dev?—writhing and trying to escape the other two. They had her by the arms, both shushing her noisily.

  As he raced toward them, Ariston looked all around the courtyard, his bolt bow ready to fire.

  But he didn’t see any enemies. The scientists were still alone. For now. The two skull-hunters wouldn’t likely come investigate the screams, but the other men trapped down here might.

  “What is it?” Ariston asked, planting himself in front of Dev’s thrashing legs.

  He had first thought that she was screaming in terror—and maybe she had been—but now, it looked more like she was having a seizure. Something he had little experience with. How could he help?

  “She won’t stop screaming,” Weiss blurted unhelpfully.

  “We can’t hold a hand over her mouth when she’s got her hood on. Though at this rate—” Lee grunted and shifted his weight as one of her thrashes pulled him off balance, “—she may knock it off on her own.”

  “She was yelling that they were going to get her and pointing at the sky before she fell down,” Weiss added.

  “Here. I’ll take her back to the ship.” Ariston bent down, intending to pick her up—flailing wouldn’t bother him much through his armor. But she stopped moving abruptly, legs and arms flopping limply to the ground. He hesitated. “Are you sure that wasn’t a seizure?”

  “People don’t usually scream when they have seizures,” Lee said as Weiss said, “I have no idea.”

  “Maybe her fear caused it.” Ariston gathered the limp Dev in his arms. Whatever had happened, she needed to have a medical scanner run over her.

  “If she had a history of seizures, she wouldn’t have been selected for this mission,” Lee said. “We all had to pass stringent physicals.”

  “Ariston?” Mick spoke over his comm. “I heard screaming. Is that our crazy enemies? Or did something happen to our people?”

  She had heard screaming?

  “You’re not outside, are you?” He frowned. If he’d known that, he would have widened the area he was patrolling so he could also guard her.

  “I’m fixing the panels. Answer my question, please.”

  “It’s Dev,” Lee said. “She hallucinated and got afraid, and then… we’re not sure. She may have had a seizure.”

  “I’m bringing her to the ship,” Ariston said. “Your other scientists too.”

  “I’m not done photographing the ruins,” Lee said. “There’s all manner of wall art here, depicting sporting events and ceremonies.”

  A yell sounded in the distance, not from the direction of the cenote but from the direction of the pyramid. Wasn’t anyone sleeping tonight?

  “I’m bringing everyone to the ship,” Ariston said firmly.

  Lee sighed. Weiss started heading that way without argument. His steps were rapid. Maybe he’d seen something too.

  Or hallucinated, as Lee had said. Was that what people were doing? Ariston supposed that made more sense than otherworldly influences, but if so, what could be causing it? Some members of Eryx’s crew were walking around in plain clothes, but the scientists had only been out in suits that protected them from environmental influences, and his and Mick’s armor had a similar function, filtering air and blocking radiation as well as enemy fire. What could be affecting everyone equally? Granted, he hadn’t hallucinated, but he’d definitely felt off since coming down here. Headaches and weariness weren’t typical for him.

  “Make sure to get her samples, Lee,” Mick said.

  “What?” Lee asked, already on his way out of the courtyard.

  “I assume she took soil samples,” Mick said dryly, though there was a worried note in her words. “She’ll be distraught if she wakes up and they’re not there.”

  “She can come back tomorrow and get them,” Lee grumbled.

  He and Weiss both shot worried looks back into the courtyard as they exited it.

  Though Ariston already carried Dev, she was a light burden, so he shuffled her in his grip and bent to pick up her prong-tool and several canisters she had filled with soil.

  He jogged to catch up with the others, not wanting to let any of his charges out of his sight. Dev stirred in his arms, her suit rustling as her hood turned toward him.

  “What happened?” she asked, sounding normal, if exhausted. “I saw… something, some big black cloud blotting out the stars and swooping down to get me. I mean, that’s what it seemed like. It made an arrow and went straight for my heart. Then I screamed—I shouldn’t have done that. But this coldness seemed to enter me, like something was going to rip out my soul.”

  “It may have been a hallucination,” Ariston said. “The others say they didn’t see it.”

  “Really?”

  Even though Ariston didn’t believe in the supernatural, he couldn’t help but note the timing of the events. Dev must have seen that darkness at the same time as those two thieves had been pulling that skull out of the cenote.

  “You may have had a seizure after that,” he added.

  Another gust of wind swept through the ruins, and she said, “What?”

  “Have you ever had seizures before?” he asked, the ship coming into sight ahead.

  Its running lights were out, but a lantern on the ground near the damaged exterior made it possible for the scientists to find the hatch. Night’s darkness had grown more pronounced, with heavy clouds blotting out the stars. More wind gusted across the desert, kicking up dust as it swept between the boulders.

  “No, not me,” Dev said. “I have an aunt who has epilepsy, my mom’s sister. She has to take anticonvulsant medicine for it, but it’s nothing I’ve dealt with.”

  A surprisingly hard gust blew against Ariston, almost knocking him into a boulder. Until now, the wind hadn’t bothered him through his armor, but it was growing more powerful.

  An armored figure stepped into the light’s influence, holding a magtorch and clamps.

  “That you, Mick?” Ariston asked, though he knew it was. Nobody else on her ship seemed to have combat armor. He’d decided not to point out to her that it was illegal for civilians to have a suit. He wouldn’t arrest someone for that. Not just for that. A lot of people got their hands on it from military surplus stores that sold black market goods on the side.

  “Of course it’s me,” she said without turning around. She was wrestling with a panel, trying to get it over a gap in the hull. “Did you think your thugly comrades would come to repair the ship they damaged?”

  “No.” He bristled at the idea of Eryx’s crew being his “comrades,” but he reminded himself again that it was better that she believe that than know the truth. “Though they should.”

  “I absolutely agree.”

  Mick clamped a replacement panel into position, then turned as Ariston approached with Dev. Lee and Weiss were almost to the hatch, and Ariston called, “Wait, take her in with you.”

  He didn’t want to go through the lengthy decontamination process himself, not when he wasn’t ready to go in and stay in.

  “Dev, are you all right?” Mick asked.

  Dev waved an arm vaguely. “It’s been a weird night.”

  “I have your tools and samples,” Ariston said.

  “You do?” Dev slung an arm around his neck for an awkward hug.

  He kept walking while she did it, heading toward the hatch and the two men. He was in time to hear some muttered words during a lull in the wind.

  “He’s got a way with the women, doesn’t he?”

  “I’m still wonderi
ng who the hell he is.”

  “Nobody we should—”

  The wind kicked up again, and Ariston didn’t hear the rest. Weiss and Lee stopped talking as he drew near. They stepped forward to accept Dev and her gear in their arms.

  The wind blew the hatch shut as they tried to step in. They groped at the handle awkwardly, their hands already full. One almost got it open when the wind blew it shut again.

  Ariston held back a smirk as he stepped forward to hold it open for them. He knew it was immature to be amused by such a thing, but maybe the gods were watching over the planet and playing tricks on those who deserved it. If so, he hoped those two grave robbers in the ruins would fall into the cenote and get stuck in the tar down there. Maybe they would be preserved for all eternity, just like the skulls.

  The three scientists made it into the airlock, and the hatch clanged shut.

  Ariston walked back to the rear of the ship. He’d thought to run out and collect the two artifact—skull—thieves once he saw the scientists safely inside, but that was before he’d seen Mick out here. With her armor, she could probably take care of herself—or at least survive being fired at for long enough to run into her ship—but he was reluctant to leave her out here alone. Further, she could use some help. The wind was tugging at those large, unwieldy panels, leaving her struggling.

  “I’ll help,” he said, stepping forward and taking the one she was fighting with. “I’m almost as good as a fast-clamp.”

  “Yeah? You put that on your résumé?”

  “My what?”

  “Never mind.” She waved for him to press the panel into place and lit up the torch.

  A lot of the damage that had been visible through the scorched and mangled hull had been repaired already. Had she done all that? She must have—the engineer wasn’t around. He wouldn’t have expected her to have mechanical skills in addition to being a pilot and a fighter. Any of those other talents could be full-time occupations.

  “Sorry,” Mick said, glancing at him.